1. Field of the Invention
The present invention relates to a document management device which manages documents by utilizing additive information.
2. Description of the Related Art
In general, in investigation activity, a series of procedures such as collection of reference materials, evaluation of each reference materials, and utilization of evaluation result, are performed. Information given as evaluation result to a reference includes decision whether it is necessary or not, evaluation of value such as importance, comment regarding contents or the like. Selection, sorting and creating visual presentation of references are performed utilizing the given evaluation information.
Evaluation information for a reference is not information originally accompanying the reference, but it is information reflecting the viewpoint or criteria of the evaluator himself. That is, there is criterion or purpose for evaluation, and the evaluation information is given in response to the criterion or purpose. Also the evaluation may vary depending on difference of the evaluator or the evaluation date. Consequently, when selection or sorting of references is performed using the evaluation information, it is preferable that information regarding the viewpoint for the evaluation, such as the criterion of evaluation, purpose, evaluator, and evaluation date, is clear.
In many cases, the investigation covering only a specific type of references is not sufficient. References provided by unlimited range of information sources should be covered. For example, when known information of the patent is investigated, not only documents of the patent gazette but also information such as a treatise, an article in a newspaper or a magazine, and a catalog of products must be aimed at.
In recent years, a database device for managing documents and a device for creating charts using data stored in the database are developed. Consequently if the reference data and the evaluation information can be suitably inputted in the database, a series of procedures from collection of references to utilization of the evaluation information can be helped. In order to perform such a series of works smoothly, there are criteria to be satisfied as follows.
(1) The evaluation information can be attached to references by simple operation at will.
(2) The viewpoint for giving the evaluation can be simply defined and utilized.
(3) Various types of reference materials can be aimed at for the evaluation. Regarding respective criteria to be satisfied, the prior art and methods by using this and problems in such cases will be described.
First, a method in the prior art for supplying the reference data with the evaluation information simply and freely will be described. Difficulty due to feature of the work of evaluating references is an essential problem common not only for the case of inputting information electronically but also for the case of inputting information using paper. First, the feature of the work of evaluating references will be described, and a method in the case of using references of paper will be put in order.
Evaluation of references and utilization of the evaluation results is not always performed at once. For example, before analyzing collected documents, some amount of evaluation results must be registered. Also when the evaluation is performed by plural persons, the evaluation results by each person in charge must be gathered before discussing and comparing them. Thus in the investigation activity, in many cases, relation of a reference and its evaluation information must be maintained from the evaluation of the reference to the utilization of the evaluation result.
In the case of the investigation using a reference of paper, as one method of supplying the evaluation information to the reference, there is a method that a memo having specific meaning or a memo with the evaluation information written therein is attached to a reference or a list of reference names. As a method besides this, for example, there is a method that the reference and the evaluation information are recorded in a separate management ledger or a method that the evaluation information is written directly in the reference. In the method of using the management ledger, however, the reference and the evaluation information must be referred in correspondence to each other every time and this work is troublesome. Also since the evaluation information is essentially different from the information of the reference, and, for example, the evaluation information may be changed therefore it is not preferable that the evaluation information is written directly in the reference.
FIG. 43 to FIG. 46 are explanation diagrams of an example of the memo attaching. FIG. 43 to FIG. 45 show image of the memo attaching. FIGS. 43A and 43B show an example that memos giving different decisions of evaluation to the same reference are attached. FIG. 44A shows an example that plural memos are attached to one reference simultaneously. FIG. 44B shows an example that various columns are previously provided on a piece of paper for memo to be attached to a reference, and the evaluation method is guided. Further, FIG. 45 shows an example that different pieces of paper for memo are used, and the evaluation information is used commonly in plural departments.
The attaching of a memo is not limited to the case that a memo is attached directly to a reference. For example, in examples shown in FIGS. 46A and 46B, memos are attached to the list of references. In this case, memos are attached to positions where corresponding references can be specified thereby relating between the reference and the memo is performed. Thus the memos are attached under various purposes and configurations.
In the method of attaching memos, the reference and the memo are independent media, and since this method is characterized in that the relating between the reference and the memo is performed by coupling of both, there are advantages as follows.
First, since the reference and the memo are independent media, it can be seen at a glance of the reference whether the evaluation information exists or not. Therefore the loss or forgetting of the evaluation information can be prevented. Also content of the evaluation information and content of the original reference can be easily distinguished. Further since it can be seen at a glance by a person other than the evaluator whether the evaluation information exists or not, the evaluation information can be used commonly between plural persons.
Further the evaluation information given as a result of reading the reference can be related to the reference by attaching a memo directly to the reference without referring to the management ledger or the like. Also being different from writing it directly in the reference, if the coupling between the reference and the memo is eliminated, the relating can be eliminated thereby this method is advantageous in that the evaluation information can be supplied in carefree manner.
Thus according to the attaching of the memo by medium independent of the reference data, the evaluation information can be supplied easily and freely. However, this work has been performed based on paper. Consequently, since the information is not inputted in electronic manner, the computer processing utilizing the supplied evaluation information can not be performed.
In order to utilize such memo effectively, the memo may be converted into that in electronic manner. For example, Japanese Patent Publication No. Hei 1-18470 (1989) discloses a method of supplying the memo information in image form to a document stored in a specific document database. Also in a document image filing device disclosed in Japanese Patent Laid-Open No. 6-236409 (1994), a user can write a handwritten memo into a document image. Afterwards the document image with the memo added thereto can be retrieved under condition whether the memo exists or not. However, the retrieval enabled in such a device by attaching the memo is limited only to that based on whether the memo exists or not. Also since only the handwritten image information is used as information of the memo, it is fundamentally difficult that the retrieval of highly utilizing the content of the memo, for example, the above-mentioned evaluation information becomes possible.
Also devices are developed where information of a memo can be held not as image but as text. In Japanese Patent Laid-Open No. Hei 5-2584 (1993), memos in various shapes including comment by text can be applied within a document. Also in Japanese Patent Laid-Open No. Hei 5-165829 (1993), edit comment described in the text information is written in a memo which is attached or detached to a portion requiring edit within a document thereby the edit in cooperation is helped. In any of the devices, a memo is allowed to hold a piece of text information to reduce the difficulty of the information input operation, and the information written in the memo is used only for displaying the information together with the document data.
As technology utilizing tag, some systems intend to call data with tag attached thereto in sequence among the database, that is, so-called tag turning. Among them, in Japanese Patent Laid-Open No. Hei 7-56934 (1995), plural types of tags are used thereby different tag turning can be performed in respective types. In this system, the tag information can possess the attribute information capable of setting not only the type information but also the order, and using such information, the access of the database is controlled. However, the tag used in this invention only has simple structure and can provide only simple retrieval function. This is insufficient for purpose of putting the reference data in order.
Next, the viewpoint of applying the evaluation to the reference data will be simply defined, and conventional manner of utilizing the reference data will be described. The evaluation information for the reference is not information essentially accompanying the reference, but reflects the viewpoint or the criteria of the evaluator. In other words, the information having the new value not existing in the original reference is created. Supply of the evaluation information is performed in itself, for example, by the attaching of a memo as above described. It is preferable that the evaluation information described in this memo is effectively utilized.
Since the reference and the memo are media independent of each other, prescribed columns may be provided on a piece of paper for memo and the evaluation method can be guided. By using the same paper for memo, the evaluation method can be standardized independently of sorts of references. Conversely, by using plural types of memos, the evaluation information in plural evaluation standard can be attached.
The attaching of the above-mentioned memo is utilized not only in the investigation activity but also widely in activity in offices. For example, the work command is described in a memo and attached to a document. Also in this case, the content of the memo is not information accompanying the document essentially, and it is other information but does not exist separated from the document.
The evaluation information is information supplied from the viewpoint of the evaluator essentially and does not accompany the original document in itself. Consequently, the giving manner of columns in the memo reflecting the own sense of value possessed by the evaluator is important. Columns in the memo are suitably provided, thereby the information describing the viewpoint when the evaluation was performed, such as the purpose, order, evaluator and evaluation date, can be held. Thus, if common structures of the memo, which is a medium independent of the reference data, are prepared, the evaluation information can be given under an uniform standard even though sorts or locations of the primary information are different.
However, as long as structure of the information regarding columns of the memo is expressed on medium of paper, it can only fill the role to guide the input information to the evaluator. Also there is a problem that the work of writing the information of the evaluator or the like every time is troublesome.
In a document creation/management system described in Japanese Patent Laid-Open No. Hei 4-80871 (1992), a user inputs information indicating the sort of a document and attribute data by filling a field accompanying the document, and then the document is registered in the database. According to this system, the user is not conscious of operation of the database and only writes prescribed data in the document thereby the database can be registered. This attribute information can be used in place of a memo. In this system, however, the user can only input the necessary data in the database where the management method is determined in each sort of the document. Each document has only one set of the attribute fields to register the information accompanying the document. The user can not register various pieces of the evaluation information to the document.
Finally, the prior art will be described where the evaluation information such as comment can be attached to many and various reference data. In any of the prior art where the evaluation information is supplied to the image data, only document data in the document management database prepared peculiarly become the evaluation purposes. In this point, circumstances are the same in constitution described in any of Japanese Patent Publication No. Hei 1-18470 and Japanese Patent Laid-Open Nos. Hei 6-236409, 5-2584, 5-165829, 756934 and 4-80871 as above described. However, such constitution is not suitable for the investigation activity covering large amount and various sorts of the reference data from the diverse information source, since all of the usable data cannot be registered into the internal database.
On the other hand, recent progress of the computer network represented by the Internet makes it possible to access to various information resources in the world through the network from the computer near at hand. Under such circumstances, as technology of treating the reference data distributed and managed in various information sources, global information system called WWW (World Wide Web) is developed based on hypertext. In the WWW, based on the server-client model, data are sent or received between a server managing the document and a client retrieving the document from the server according to the request of the user.
The document stored in the server is supplied with URL (Universal Resource Locator) being unique identifier for specifying the document according to agreement for the transmission/reception of data. Since the URL includes the information of the server where the document is stored, if the client assigns the URL only, the server can be specified and accessed and the document can be fetched.
The document treated in the WWW is hypertext described generally format called HTML (HyperText Markup Language). In the HTML, tags constituted by the special strings are embedded within the document, thereby the document format form or the link of the hypertext is expressed. The link is expressed using the URL, thereby the document stored in other server as the reference destination of the link can be assigned. Consequently, in the framework of the WWW, the hypertext network extending over a plurality of servers can be constructed.
As a client of the existing WWW having function of supplying comment to the document described in the HTML being the reference data managed by such various information sources, there is Mosaic developed in NCSA of Illinois University. Regarding the Mosaic, refer to, for example, "NCSA Mosaic Technical Summary 2.1," 1993. If the user uses the Mosaic and accesses the document on the WWW server and commands to supply the comment, a file taking correspondence of the content of the comment to the URL of the document is created. Next, when the document is displayed in the Mosaic, the link representing comment not existing in the original document is displayed at the end of the document. If the user assigns the link representing the comment, the content of the comment is read from the associated file and displayed on the screen other than the original document.
In this method, although the comment attached to various reference data can be given, the given comments are referred only in the procedure which is first accessing the reference data then displaying comments related to the data. This method does not provide the function to attach comments to reference data from the various viewpoints and manage reference data by using attached comments.
In summary, such prior art does not exists that allows to define the evaluation information based on the user's viewpoint, to attach the evaluation information to various reference data at will by simple operation, and to manage reference data by using the related evaluation information.